- Before book*printing* it was mostly anarchy, but works of art are attributed to the artists, people freely sharing stories and music.
- Bookprinters 4 ages ago [lobbied legislation from british governments](http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6283435552434112856)
- That government at the time had a shared interest to control the printed material and created the stationers guild. Government sanctioned monopolized censorship ensued for another century
- lobbying,governments,companies and money can be debated but that's beyond the scope right now - let's take the fact we currently have an economy. We hope governments stay above corruption,greed,self interest,human failure to make the correct choices, incompetence. In general we hope it's a democratic system, and in most countries lobbying occurs.
- During the founding of the USA 3 ages ago the founding fathers took some of the best things into the constitution and they may have escaped a country but they might not have escape a century of indoctrination.
- Regardless, they had good intentions and let's keep it at somehow copyright got mixed into the constitution.
>To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for **limited Times** to **Authors and Inventors** the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
(emphasis mine)
- However the precedent was already set that right holders were the publishers. Not the artists the constitution refers to.
- Fast forward 2,5 ages
- With the introduction of cassette tapes, and video recording tapes, the copyright debate was revisited. The facts of sharing to promote artists and other arguments resulted in the fair share and fair use principles.
- Over time our governments created from the same pillars of successes as mentioned earlier international governments. Still hoping it's democratic, because it's represented by it's strong foundations of failsafe democracies.
- To cut short, currently we have among others a billion dollar media industry claiming products are stolen, and revenue is lost because of copyright infringement.
- Without looking into these claims and challenging them with examples that 2011 was the year with the most cinema revenue ever,or even going so far as to investigating allegations that certain corporations have a shared interest in enabling filesharing and have been helping create the problem for a decade (which they are still doing against the current laws as lobbied for by the same companies). More legislation is proposed and more sanctions are required.
- In secret, proposals to further strengthen the position of copyright holders are being drafted. Often ignoring or contradicting fair sharing/use, and often including draconian enforcement which results in censoring, restricting new developments and so on.
- Unlike all the theoretical proposals and legislation, due to the technological foundations of the internet copying information, and thus including copying copyrighted material will always be possible.
- We can debate copyright but it's a debate in the wrong direction,and often forgetting the existing laws,regulations and exceptions to sharing. The concerns against copyright regulations are not because because we want to deny the artists. In the current system the individual artists are being denied. In fact, if we want to look into how much money is being stolen, it could be argued we take a look how much is being robbed from the artists too!
- Currently a hot topic is the shift from Civil law to criminal law, and the benefits to corporate controlled prisons. But an immediate topic is the ratification of ACTA.. it's partly signed but hopefully not too late to destroy it and protests from within governments are starting to rise.
- I'll refrain from calling the system corrupt globally but corrupt individuals within governments globally and global government organizations have a shared interest too, they dream to recreate a Government sanctioned monopolized censorship again, however this time the internet is target. (and this is the part where the discussion of governments is outside this scope, but you should look into it after we destroy ACTA)
- Child pornography, terrorism, extreme pornography, (mass) copyright infringement (for monetary gain aside fair sharing) and other rampant evils are argument as stern reason to invoke censorship and draconian measures to restrict the internet as we know and love it. (Don't you just hate it when accidentally find child porn,it's so widespread!!)
- Be vigilant, Voice your concerns, Do not give up on our last real free vestibule. and for all that's worth .. copy this message.